prologue

kennedy

december 2007
The wall of discarded milk cartons is the only barrier between me
and the gunfire outside. On a normal night, the noises of Kibera
drift easily through these walls: reggae music, women selling vegetables by candlelight, drunken men shouting insults, dogs barking, a c ouple making love in their nearby shack. But now Kibera
is frozen. The entire slum is holding its breath, praying for this
rain of bullets to pass, like any other storm.
Im shivering under the bed. Its so dark and breathing is
difficult. I can feel spiders crawling over my back and rats poking my toes, but I stay still, afraid that any movement will draw
the uniformed men. I hear a high-pitched scream, like that of a
young girl. The uniformed men are spraying bullets, and they hit
anyone or anything unlucky enough to cross their path. I close
my eyes and pray that the girl will survive. They didnt come to
Kibera for her. They came for me.
I havent eaten since yesterday when the raids began; Im

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4 kennedy odede and jessica posner

starving for both water and food. In my pocket I have two dollars, which could ordinarily sustain me for at least a week. But
even if I came out of hiding, there would be nowhere to get food.
All the shops in the neighborhood have been closed or looted.
The road going into Kibera has been shut by the mobs and men
in uniformsparamilitary police. Nothing and nobody comes
in and out without a struggle. They are sealing us in to die.
I hear gunfire, round after round in quick succession. The
quiet afterward is almost as startling as the noise. I jump, and my
head hits the underside of the bed hanging so low and close to the
ground. My dog, Cheetah, barks outside the door. Please be quiet,
I pray. Dont call them here. I lie frozen, anticipating the footsteps,
but there is only blissful silence. Thirty minutes pass, and I do not
hear any shots. Slowly I drag my body out from underneath the
bed. My legs are stiff, and I dance back and forth to rid myself of
the pins and needles. I gingerly open my front door, pat Cheetah
on his head, and say firmly, quietly, Stay. He isnt trained, just
another nearly feral street dog, but I know he senses my urgency.
I knock on the rusting sheet metal door of my neighbor,
Mama Akinyi. No one answers.
Please, Mama Akinyi, its me, Ken, I whisper.
Slowly, she comes to open the door and hastily sneaks me in.
Her young face is gaunt. She is holding her little five-year-old
girl, Akinyi. The same terror I feel is visible on Akinyis face. Im
hungry and weak, and by good luck Mama Akinyi notices my
dry lips. She offers me some of the porridge that she has saved for
her daughter. I ask for only a sip, just enough.
We tune the radio to a local station, keeping the volume
hushed. She has not seen her husband for the last two days. Many
people have been shot in Kibera.
The bullets are close, I say.
Mama Akinyi looks at me through a veil of tears. Her husband might be among the dead. While we listen to the radio we
hear some men murmuring outsidewith tin and cardboard

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find me unafraid 5

walls, sounds easily trickle in and out. I perk my ears and hear
from the murmurs that its not just twenty or thirty p eople dead,
but more than they can count. I dont need to listen any further.
I thank Mama Akinyi and quickly go back to my house before
endangering her family.
Several hours later there is still quiet, which now seems more
eerie than the noise. Then someone is knocking, quietly but urgently at the door.
Ken, Ken, are you there? Wake up! Its me, Chris.
Chris is just a few years younger than I am; I have known
him his whole life. I open the door and see that hes frantic with
terror. He is out of breath, panting, and I know what he will say
before the words come out of his mouth.
Leave, Ken, please. One of the menhe is showing p eople
your picture, asking if theyve seen you, if they know where you
live.
I tell him to leave now, and he nods, knowing that any minute they might make their way here, using their guns and their
money to get the information they need. I look at how skinny
Chris is, and I thank him from the bottom of my heart for not
selling me out. Even with this place turned to total chaos, I am
reminded of how good p eople can be.
Cheetah begins to bark and wont stop. Then I hear the footsteps. Heavy footsteps. The men still have to make their way
around the treacherously narrow corner. I calculate I have less
than a minute to escape.
All I want to do is write her a letter, tell her how much I love
her, and tell her that I should have listened, I should have left. Tell
her how sorry I am for all the things we will never get to do and
see together.
But maybe its just as well. Probably none of it would have
come true, our late-night plans to build a life together probably
just an adolescent romance. She so sweetly believes anything is
possible and my heart would break watching her come to know

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what I knowthat no matter how you try or believe, everything

can end at the cry of a bullet, the sound of soldiers footsteps, the
breaking of a heart. Eventually shed tire of the challenges of living in my world, and Id grow tired too, living in hers.
I have my own dreams here, in Kibera.
Gunshot! Followed by a howl. Cheetah! They must have shot
him in the alleyway, but I cannot risk going to look. Shaken from
my thoughts, I run from the house. My heart beating, feet moving, I take precious extra seconds to lock the padlock on my door.
I run blindly, looking for any cranny where I can hide. There is
a sheet of metal that covers the opening to a small alley near my
door. I crawl behind it and will myself not to breathe, praying
my shaking body wont bump the metal sheet and give away my
hiding spot. Through a crack I can see my door. The men materialize, weapons slung over their shoulders, dressed in fatigues,
threatening in their uniformity.
Upon reaching my house, the men find the door is locked by
my small padlock. Thank God I took the extra time to do that
with my door locked it looks like I am not home. Kicking the
door hard, their warning clear, the intruders storm off. I wait in
my hiding spot for countless hours to make sure the scene wasnt
staged, and then I emerge panting and shaking, racked by both
fear and relief.
I crawl on my stomach to the fence behind my house, climb
over, and fall hard on the other side. My torso hits the ground like
a sack of maize, but I feel no pain, as if my body has reached its saturation point. I begin running, hiding in the secret shadows of the
shanties. I have no destination in mind, only the desperate desire
to get away, to reach some elusive safety. I have to step over bodies
still lying where they fellthe mortuary sweep has not yet begun,
and everyones afraid to venture out to claim the fallen. Kibera is
a city of the dead. I am not scared of the dead, but of the living.
When I am finally far enough away, I stop to take a breath
and pull out my cell phone. I swallow hard and dial.

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